Translated from the Malayalam by K. M. Ajir Kutty

Joemon tarried a while before opening the packet after slamming shut the door of the makeshift tent pitched with tarpaulin. The expression on his face then was somewhat shaken as it intermittently showed the features of curiosity, fear, sorrow, and helplessness. No sooner had he opened the packet than he started gorging on it. When I saw him do that, the fear, the tension, and the occasional sense of aversion which I had been experiencing till then, soon vanished.
“Don’t you want to eat, chettayi?”
He turned toward me in one look of gratitude and joy, his lips smeared with hot spicy masala. His look was reminiscent of the same look with which he would eye the nomadic children being fed by mother when they came begging for a meal or something. When I saw that I felt sad.
This Joemon is not the child of a lesser home, is he? He is the only son of Ottaplakkal Vareethu Mappila. His property consisted of four to five acres of rubber plantation, lands with yields, cows, and chicken farms . . . and on top of that he had a restaurant in town which did brisk business. They all belonged to this boy as well, didn’t they? His father tried currying favor with him a great deal to make him stay with him for tending his property and business. But he was not drawn toward a life at the foot of the hill. He went out of the state to study. When he landed a job, it was in Chennai that he was posted first. Then he shifted to Mumbai, where he has been for about a year. He had a salary hike in Mumbai. When he came home last time, he was heard telling mother that he would have to move to Australia before long. As I was in the manger slicing grass for cows, I could hear, standing at the window, what they said. Kochannamma was serving him boiled cassava and crushed dry fried beef.
Once Joemon comes home, the delicious aroma of beef being cooked in spicy masala will fill the house until he goes off. Both Kochannamma and Thresya would cook beef for him to his liking in different styles. Beef fry, beef dry fried with onion, beef fried draining water to a trickle, crushed dry fried beef, roasted beef—the beef festival in the house would go on like that. It was Joemon who himself christened it beef festival.
Those who happen to spot me going early in the morning to Johnny’s beef shop would not fail to ask me “Joemon is coming, isn’t he?”
Since Kochannamma and Vareethu Mappila have registered a very high level of cholesterol in their blood, they have hardly eaten any beef. Whenever their daughters and their husbands pay a visit to the house too, I would go like this early in the morning to buy beef.
“Now, da Joemon, won’t you get beef in your Bombay?”
I cannot but ask him when I see his craving for the meat. Although I am a servant in the house, he calls me chettayi, big brother. I have always enjoyed the freedom to say anything in that house.
“It is hard to get beef there. In some areas it is not available at all. What we do is this: we meet together in a friend’s flat. Succulent beef is available in the area where Biju lives. We will run to his place every Sunday,” Joemon said.
When he was in Chennai, he used to go somewhere to have his fill of beef. It was certainly available at some restaurants run by Malayalees. When he moved to Maharashtra, the situation became more or less grim. When there was a change of regime in the state, his only fear was about that.
“Mother, from now onwards it is doubtful if I will get beef there . . . ,” he had expressed his anxiety when he came home last time. And it happened just as he had feared.
Kochannamma placed her hand on her chest the moment she heard news on TV that beef would no longer be available in Maharashtra since the Animal Protection Act of 1995 has come into force in the state.
“O My Lord! What would my Joemon do now?”
To Kochannamma that piece of news was just like airing distressful news of Maharashtra coming to a grining halt “without drinking water, rice, wheat, or onion.”
Joemon was licking clean the banana leaf in which they had packed the beef fry.
“I had planned to take some of it home, chettayi. But I am afraid I will be caught,” he said grieving. “It is an offence that attracts a fine of INR 10,000. Never mind the fine; imprisonment for five years on top of that . . . that is quite unbearable . . . “
It is only this morning that I came from Kerala. I was not at all scared when I had started from home. It is not a bomb that I am carrying with me, is it? Four or five kilos of crushed beef fried in coconut oil; that is the thing. I had not felt any fear until I crossed the border of Karnataka.
From then onwards I somehow felt that carrying a bomb would have been safer than this. All those Maharashtrian Malayalees whom I had met on the train were all ears for what I had to tell them. Whenever I went on a journey, I would invariably be in my mundu (dhoti) and shirt. Now I cannot change this style of dressing on the pretext of going outside Kerala. But then I saw to it that I would not utter a word that would be misconstrued by my listeners. Vareethu Mappila had warned me against talking to strangers and taking eatables from them.
It is not possible for Joemon to make another visit to his village so soon. He would now only visit the family to seek their blessings and to say goodbye to them when it is time for him to go to Australia. He would make Kochannamma cry every day saying that he is starved for beef. As they had clamped a ban on beef, one could hardly get it however hard they tried. Although there were some protests in the areas where the Muslims were a majority, they also gradually died down.
Three persons were staying together in Joemon’s flat. One of them was from Maharashtra itself. He was called Rahul Agarwal or something. The other one was one Akhil Pujari. Joemon would make fun of him saying that he was too foolish to worship a cow as mother. All the same, both of them were pure vegans. The flat belonged to the company. The company paid its rent. Since he knew in advance that he would not be staying there for long, he did not look for another flat. That’s all.
“There is no way out. If I try to bring it off somehow, Akhil will certainly smell it out. He would most probably pick a quarrel with me when we met after our Sunday get-together. He is completely happy now since the government has totally banned cow slaughter.”
It was after Kochannamma had patiently listened to all those stories and had laughed gingerly over it that she asked me if I was willing to travel to Joemon’s place. My familiarity with Mumbai was confined to my accompanying Joemon’s sister and her children once when they went there to write some examination during the Onam holidays last year. But she did not want me to go there for nothing; she wanted me to take a delicacy made of beef for him. When I first heard about it, I took it for a joke. Travelling such a long distance for nearly twenty four hours, and that too carrying crushed beef fried dry . . . when I saw Kochannamma pining for her child, I said yes at last.
When I went to the meat shop early in the morning, Johnny asked me as he was weighing tender beef on the scales: “Joemon is coming, isn’t he?”
Johnnichan was literally shocked when I told him that I was to take the delicacies made of beef to Joemon in Mumbai. Then he waved me to a side of his shop and lectured to me about some matters. First off, he warned me to always be watchful to avoid being put in jail. He then elaborated on the Maharashtra government’s plan to extend the ban all over the state. Johnny went on to say that he was really sorry that I had nothing better to do.
“Mathukkuttychaya, our country is headed toward total destruction. Look, how can we Christians and Muslims live without eating beef fry? If they ban it here, people may take to the streets and agitate against it. Or else they will go on a hunger strike right in front of the Secretariat. If that too is not possible, they will immolate themselves for it. That is to say, under any circumstances, they won’t stop eating it.”
When some customer came, Johnny went back to the shop.
“Cannot but say, Mathukkuttychaya, I feel an uneasiness in mind. I somehow feel that something is being toppled. You may go if you must. But you must fully take care of yourself. In case you are caught by them, you will be finished off.”
While the fears surged within, the journey was made exercising utmost care. The packet containing beef fry was camouflaged by placing two or three tender jackfruits and some coconuts over it. If it is examined by somebody, the answer “oh, some tender jackfruits and coconuts, that’s all” could be readily given! Once I hand over these things to him, he will, without losing any time, throw them all away. He is not cooking his food there. He eats out. Or he will go to some friends’ houses and have food from there. I had also felt some aversion to carrying the tender jackfruits and the coconuts, for nothing!
As the train moved from station to station, I started to get the loads off the ochre-clad men with their foreheads marked with sandalwood paste and ash. Some of those faces were tightly drawn and callous. It was as though I was not worth the price of a worm in their presence. It was only later that I realized that their hatred was due to the cross and rosary I was wearing around my neck.
Let him sit with his hateful expression. This rosary was brought by Kochannamma from Velankanni; there’s no question of my taking it off until I am dead and gone. To start with, my inclination was to set it right so that it could easily be seen by everybody. Soon I was in the grip of some fear. What if some madcap among them had a sudden urge to open and examine the box of a cross and rosary wearing Christian . . . The very sight of the fried meat of a “banned animal” being carried as parcel in steamed banana leaf might even start a communal carnage in the country. What if the court decided to execute the one who slaughtered their visible god and made a meal of it! The god is theirs. And the court too is theirs.
I started to tremble with fear. Without uttering anything, without looking at anybody, I lay down on the upper berth pretending to be asleep. I didn’t even get down to piss, although the bladder was full. Was the box properly locked? I managed to cast a secret glance at it once.
A portly fellow clad in ochre clothes and his forehead marked with sandal paste was relaxing with his legs resting on my box. He was in fact reciting something aloud from an open book in his hand. He seemed to be chanting some mantras.
Watching it, even though I was frightened within, I felt like laughing. The guy was chanting his mantras sitting with his legs on the sliced up and fried meat of the cow goddess.
At long last when I arrived at the station after a long and distressing journey, Joemon was waiting there for me.
“Let us not go to the flat now. We will go somewhere else,” saying those words Joemon started to sprint ahead.
There were the Maharashtrian and the other boy in the flat. They were sleeping there before going to work on the night shift. They would call up the police if they smelt fried beef.
Joemon elaborated even as he walked, nay ran.
I wanted to go sightseeing around. When I came to the city last time with the sister of Joemon, I couldn’t see anything worth mentioning. They had a busy schedule because of some examination or so. Joemon was neither walking nor running. He was, however, in a hurry
“I was actually thinking of moving to another flat. But as I was going to leave the city sooner than later, I decided to put up with it somehow.”
After walking for some time Joemon stopped amid shanties made with tarpaulin in the railway backyard. The area was surrounded by a pool of black, slimy, and stinking water. House flies and street dogs were squirming in it. This should be the spot where the railways dump their trash. If I stand here for too long, I will feel giddy and fall over.
“Nobody will be around here during daytime. They will have gone to pick rags and throwaways.”
I was really frightened when he entered a shanty, waving aside the curtain screening its entrance.
“Joemon, if we’re spotted by somebody . . .”
“Chettayi, come here . . . no thieves will enter here. What would they get from here? And the police . . . the police never bother to cast a glance. The corporation men come here now and again to dismantle the shanties. It is safe to be here until it happens.”
He entered the shanty, pulled down the tarpaulin and opened the packet. Within the shanty it was all humidity and odor. Fresh air hardly passed through it. A torn mat and a soiled pillow were stacked in a corner. A kerosene stove was also there in another corner, apart from some blackened vessels. That was all. What Joemon said was right. Nobody would bother to enter here.
When I watched Joel V. John, a software engineer, and the only son of Ottaplakkal Vareethu Mappila, eating his favorite dish of beef sitting in a hut of nomadic hawkers while breathing in the stench emanating from the filth around, and licking his fingers smeared with masala and oil, I had an onset of fear and anxiety at once. What I remembered then was whether we in our Kulamavu too would be forced to eat our beef fry like this in secret. O Lord, where is our country headed, I remembered with fear holding tight the cross I was wearing.

__